Negative and Positive – Identity and Self

The present time in our society is one that is defined by identities. Most public debates are couched in elements of identity, advertising is geared towards the construction of an overt celebration of individual identities and ideas of a satisfied life revolve around the extent to which we are allowed to be “ourselves”. Meaning that, today, the idea of identity holds tremendous strength – it defines almost all discussion and is central to how we interpret events and where we place meaning. With such importance placed on identity, we are given an insight into how we see ourselves, what we actually know, or think we know, about ourselves and the subsequent nature of our interactions with the world. If this aspect really is so defining as an interface to the world at large, and is indeed the foundation for our value systems, one would think that we would want to probe every depth and know ourselves inside and out in the most thorough manner. Yet it seems that people often, or almost always, build this armor of personality and identity without knowing themselves fully, or are content with cherry-picking the specifics which they want to define themselves by. An actual knowledge of the self can be found by looking at your past, so as to understand the conditions out of which you built the first basic filters with which you approached the world. These filters are a result of the environment you grew up in, meaning family on a personal level, itself a result of how your parents grew up – which can range from a wholesome family experience, to the lack of a parental figure or guidance, to an abusive childhood. Moving outward, further filters are formed through the influence of societal structures on the family unit, plus any number of other external factors. This already alludes to the complexity of the causes that form identity. They go deep, very deep, and how the traditions, histories and events are constructed and understood, whether they are positive or negative, makes all the difference in defining the identities that are passed on.

The filters one is going to have in life are based in one’s personal psychology. Not some deep secrets locked in your subconscious, but all the factors that you feel define you and what your values are. The definition of oneself as an individual, one’s politics and one’s life goals are deeply dependent on personal psychology. To successfully and meaningfully engage with the world one has to fully understand the factors that determine this psychology, an important part of which are the effects of the above-mentioned filters on your views, as well as the effects your own life experiences have on your judgement of actions and people. The difference between this foundation being defined by negative or positive experiences or constructs is essential and characterizes how a person, community and entire people see themselves and interact with the world. Today, as in most times, there is a clear dominance of negatively defined constructs and the ideas, activities and movements that are born from them. There are, however, important lessons to be learned from the individuals in our societies who have been forced to overcome negative events in their lives – be it trauma, sickness or tragedy – so as to be able to live positive lives. As societies are elementally human, a direct line can be drawn from the individual level to a national level, to illustrate and structure possible conceptions for overcoming an identity based out of negative paradigms.

Historically, humans have the tendency to construct their bigger legends and identity-defining traits out of their defeats. From the ancient Greek defeat at Thermopylae and the use of ‘Molon labe’, not only by the modern Greek First Army Corps, but as a defiant statement in the face of sure defeat through the ages, to the Serbian nationalist movement basing their identity on the defeat at the Battle of Kosovo, the strange reverence for the slaughter at the Battle of the Somme or Verdun, or failed revolutions throughout history – humans seem to gravitate to the negative or even humiliating as the more defining elements of their identity. Even though this appears to be our standard procedure, it is still important to understand what the implications are when the defining events of one’s life or the history of one’s community, region or nation, are negative. The biggest point being that defining yourself through a negative experience makes arriving at a positive outcome much harder, if not all together impossible. Likewise, if a nation or community defines itself through a tragedy, the path to a healthier, positive national identity will be long and fairly likely doomed to failure. The outcome is usually some kind of mix of paranoia, aggression and intolerance.

This concept of the implicit problems in basing identity on a negative foundation was first really highlighted for me through a statement by Dieter Grauman, former President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who spoke of the dangers inherent in basing modern Jewish identity so strongly in relation to the Holocaust. His point was that, not only did this negate thousands of years of positive association from across the entire cultural and historical spectrum that Judaism has to offer, but that it made the achievement of a wholly positive identity and society so much harder. This rang very true and immediately brought countless other examples to mind, from the individual to the regional and national levels, of identities defined or burdened by the past. To question cultural constructs built from such events is felt to be highly dubious, and to even suggest different attitudes can be treasonous. This truth seems to be confirmed through other examples and the highly emotional backlash or immediate emotional-cognitive defense mechanisms which spring into action if one is to question Polish patriotism, for example, or look for nuance in areas of conflict in World War II (for instance, racism in the US Armed Forces and beyond), or when countries begin to circle their demons, such as the French in Algeria, the Belgians in Congo, Americans and the genocide of the indigenous peoples, Australians and the massacre and denigration of the Aboriginal peoples, or more complex and farther-reaching trajectories such as colonial slavery. In these cases, we see the “perpetrators” trying to ignore reality and the victims trapped in identities based out of denigration, with both sides becoming prisoners of these events in different ways – the perpetrators are haunted by the skeletons in their closet, not being able to fully move on as they feel the doubt connected to their positive identity, while the victim is bound to their negative identity forever, having to work twice as hard to achieve a positivity that is somehow not bound up in a righteous anger. Though the anger is wholly justified, it is anger nonetheless, and one which the individual or community may then never really escape, as the negative experience becomes the defining element.

Classic, national examples of the dangers of negative association are the mostly violent backlashes of nations after having been humiliated following the loss of a conflict. Obvious cases here are the Germans after World War I, which itself was in part a reaction to how the Germans treated the French after the Franco-Prussian War and the harsh terms they had to deal with. Simmering resentment and the trauma of the war laid out the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and begat simmering resentment which would lead to the outbreak of World War II. Russia’s current mood and actions can be seen to be the behavior of a nation that was disgraced and embarrassed through its loss of status and is now forcing its way back onto the world stage with a chip on its shoulder, wanting to prove to the world, and more importantly to itself, just how great they have always really been. The many nations born from former colonies of the world also struggle to form solid identities that are not based in some exorcism of their own past, an unbelievably laborious and exhaustive process. They face the difficult work of building a positive self-image not based in the pain of past exploitation or the indignation of being the result of colonial rampages. This list of negative communal responses should illustrate the historically short-term nature of such emotional reactions to negatively-loaded identities and how the end to which they work is very vague and, much like a troubled person trying to work against a wrongdoing in their life, will never really be satisfied, or at least only to someone else’s detriment, which would spawn another cycle of negativity and violent reactions.

Here is where the struggles of the individual can be the guiding path. People who have suffered abuse or trauma, have a mental disorder or are fighting addictions (usually as a result of one of the other factors), all have to make some kind of peace with the extremely negative experiences of their lives. This is, in most cases, an ongoing and life-long undertaking, but one which ensures the most positive life possible, one where the person can then be a good partner, parent or friend. This is a highly complex issue where there are no easy solutions, but one which, both on the individual level and higher, ensures a more healthy society. It is, of course, highly incendiary to put forward ideas on how a whole people should handle their history, especially in our time when there are legions waiting to be set off into a righteous frenzy. Yet seeing as the boom of identities has played into the hands of the far-right and given rise to populist movements around the world, it might be interesting to see how people who have dealt with physical and sexual violence, been traumatized by war or suffer suicidal depression, make it through the day and their life. They can allow us insight into how we can side-step knee-jerk reactions and the short-term highs associated with ideological chest-beating for whatever cause, and maybe open up paths of steady, focused and informed movement towards mutual acceptance and a more stable society.

In the individual, much as in the nation, this negativity is passed onto the next generation in a myriad of ways. A person whose parent committed suicide, was alcoholic, a person who suffered abuse or trauma and is formed through these experiences, will try their very best to give their own children what they did not have, to not let this negativity touch their lives. Yet, if one does not have sound knowledge of what is or was lacking in one’s life, one will not be able to pass on that positivity. If you did not experience parental love and guidance as a child, then you will not fully know what to pass on to your child. You can try and go through the movements and transmit those emotions, but more often than not these will be lacking, if not hollow. By carrying this with them all their lives, the children of those parents will pass it on to their children, thereby preventing a fully positive future for generations to come. The example of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust allows us to witness the effects of the historical on the individual, as the generation of children of both perpetrators and victims struggled with the older generation, for different reasons and with different results. Both German and Jewish parents did not want to speak about that time. Both generations of children talk about the silence, the skeletons in the closet and a distance to the older generation. For many children of Holocaust survivors it meant that they had emotionally absent parents, where the children ended up parenting their traumatized parents. For the younger German generation it meant a strange pact of silence and a nationwide phenomenon of dinner table confrontations when many teenagers asked their parents what they had done during the war. The turbulence of the late 60’s and 70’s in Germany, the left-wing terrorism of the RAF, were a result of the simmering questions of guilt. Such questions weigh heavy on the national conscience, they are a tumor that can or will eat away at the identity of a people unless they are successfully dealt with.

Modern Germany continues to be an interesting example, in that it shows how people try to move forward and attempt normality and a new identity in light of deep-seated negativity, in this case the knowledge of heavy and undeniable guilt. This is intriguing because it bares so many parallels to the struggles of individuals and is a perfect example of how, just as in the life of an individual, this process never actually ends and must be dealt with in an ongoing fashion. A person who grows up knowing one of their parents was a murderer, or that their grandparent was a sex abuser, will never not know this. A person who accidentally hit and killed someone with their car will never not remember this happened. They must live with these forms of guilt and find a way of still making their life a positive one. If they cannot do this, then it will define who they are as individuals, friends, parents and family, influencing everything around them. As a nation, Germany is in constant dialogue with itself on how to deal with its past. It has, for a very long time, been the only country to ever really deal with collective guilt on such a deep level. Of course, this was forcibly initiated by outside elements. The majority of people just wanted to forget, but it was carried on by the younger generation, the children of the “Tätergeneration” (Perpetrator generation). For half a century now, Germany has intensely wrestled with its guilt and it is still omnipresent. Now, as the last of the perpetrators and victims die, the debate is once again very current. How Germany now deals with its heritage of guilt will say a lot about who they have become and will define who they are in the future. It is a great opportunity for them to grow and move beyond most other nations in that respect, including the US, France, UK and Japan, among many others who have only now, and very slowly and begrudgingly, begun to deal with their pasts of either genocide against indigenous peoples or an array of war crimes. If Germany can successfully move into the future and evolve a more complex national identity that can incorporate its guilt, but not be defined by it, it could be a model for future national identity that would allow us to move beyond the old and increasingly archaic ideas that are currently celebrating a comeback. This is the very real struggle of identity that is, nationally, so very German, but also one that people all around the world face every day, in one way or another, in their personal lives. It is the pain of having to stare at the complexity of life, to see one’s own mistakes or the pain caused by others, to take on a burden that one might have done nothing to deserve, the weight of generations past, and yet move forward in a strong and self-assured manner to be a positive force. The fact that there is no sure outcome makes this approach all the less attractive, but this says nothing about its value.

As an individual one is only left with rising above and moving beyond these occurrences, making as much peace as one can with the negative elements of one’s identity. It is a constant undertaking, a consistent rethinking and reevaluating over time, so as to secure a positive present. The identity formed solely from the negative, either through victimhood or the glory of defeat, leads directly to anger through humiliation or the feeling of being forgotten, which will itself eventually lead to some form of revenge, and always, especially in the long trajectories of history, blows up in the face of the protagonist. Individuals show us how these cycles can be broken and blunt, ineffective, wholly identity-based orientation can be counteracted by learning to face complex realities, learning to view the causes and effects from a certain distance, digesting the negative and locating its place within one’s identity – not as the defining element, but as one factor among many. This does not negate the experience; it just incorporates the pain and negativity within identity, as part of the whole, featuring positive and negative elements, and not just a dominating negative engine that drives all thinking and behavior. Through this, positive identities, outlooks and lifestyles can be built which benefit those closest to us as much as they do the community at large. By moving on without a feeling that you or your group are leaving something valuable behind, at an overall loss, lays emotional agency back in your own hands, opening a path to shaping a fuller identity. Happiness is not a zero sum game – the overcoming of negative concepts, such as loss or unfairness, as the defining elements of identity is the equivalent of moving from two dimensions to four. The approach can actually lead to a stronger sense of self and leaves your focus and energies free to tackle bigger problems and issues, broadening the horizon.

The definition of oneself and one’s identity as a result of negative events is a cage. To rise from a negative is to arrive at zero. Real strength lies in the confrontation of the negative, of the dark past, of mistakes, of pain at the hands of others, and comprehending how it has shaped one’s values, ideas and prejudices. If you are okay with being defined by them, then that is okay too, but you forfeit a more positive truth. Strength lies in the realization of the continuous path of renewal, the embracing of pain and negativity, not as something to justify your actions in the now, but as something that has let you grow beyond the past limitations and allows you to move forward and be smarter, more balanced, and therefore stronger in the much longer term. Life is constant change and struggle on different levels and ends in death. To hold on to shallow ideas of identity, based in archaic emotional constructs, is to give up and resign oneself to a life that is either defined by the other or at the cost of others. To not let oneself be defined by the negative, but still embrace it and grow from it, makes one stronger and better in future conflict than those who cannot let go. The more complicated, quieter approach is the stronger approach and the chest-pounding, shouting, self-congratulatory one, ironically, the weaker.

Image credit: "Untitled" by Jessica Hodgkiss